An acute appendicitis spoiling his successful last season, Dane shuttler Hans-Kristian Vittinghus is now looking to get back his confidence at Syed Modi International Grand Prix Gold and aims to achieve his full fitness ahead of the All England Championship in March.
Vittinghus had clinched his maiden Super Series title at Australia Open and also helped Denmark clinch the Thomas Cup trophy but he had to undergo a surgery when he suddenly developed acute pain due to appendicitis before the China Open in October.
"In October, I got appendicitis and I got my appendix removed. I came to know about it after I developed a pain just 10 hours before I was about to board the flight for China Open. I was lucky in a way because it would have been frightening if I had that sort of unbearable pain on flight. So due to the surgery, I could not play in China and Hong Kong Open and so I couldn't qualify for the Dubai Super Series Final. It was a forced break," the World No. 14 shuttler told PTI.
Talking about last season, the 31-year-old said: "Winning Australia Open was the second best moment of my career, the best was the Thomas Cup gold. It was an unbelievable year for me. I didn't have a good season in 2015, so I was not expecting such a year. I got back into the top 10 as well. I feel like I have worked really hard to get that so it is very satisfying. It meant a lot to me."
Vittinghus said he is looking to make up for the lost ranking points with a good show at the Syed Modi tournament.
"It is a quite an important event for me because I haven't played any tournament in the last few months. All England is coming up shortly, so it is one of the final events for me to prepare for that.
"I'm also looking to get some extra points to qualify for World Championships in August because I missed out of the tournaments in November and December and I need the ranking points so from that perspective also it is an important event for me," said the second seed, who is now the top-ranked player in the draw after top seed Thailand's Tanongsak Saensomboonsuk withdrew last evening.
"I had a few league matches in Denmark that I played in last few weeks. But no doubt that I am not in my very best condition, that is something I want to achieve during the All England, so I am still in the build-up but I will still say I am quite happy with the level that I can play right now. I am sure if I can get into the later stages of the tournament, I will start playing better and get near my best," he added.
Asked why he opted for this tournament, Vittinghus said: "One of the reasons that I came here is that I saw an opportunity for me to get a few extra matches. Hopefully the first couple of rounds shouldn't be too much of a problem for me.
"I will be able to get back into the move and rhythm that I have been missing since October and the field here is not that strong. The top 10 players here are strong but after that there is a gap, so that is definitely one of the reasons why I decided to play here," he said.
Asked about the schedule ahead, Vittinghus said: "I will play Germany and skip Thailand because we have the Danish Nationals next week after this event and after that there will be 2-3 weeks break before the Germany and All England Championships."
Asked if he was surprised when P V Sindhu won the Olympic silver, Vittinghus said: "I was in Rio as a commentator for Danish TV, so we were quite surprised when Sindhu suddenly reached the finals but when you watch the matches in Rio then you can see she was playing one of the best women's singles from the start and even afterward she proved that she is one of the best players in the world."
Talking about the lack of women's singles players in Denmark, Vittinghus said: "I think the main reason is injuries. Denmark has a very small sample size of players. We had three decent players after Tine (Baun) left but they all had to quit because of injuries and we don't have enough players to fill in the space.
"So the girls we have now are very young. When Tine quit the oldest player we had at the National center was just 19 and usually in Danish women's singles, they don't reach the highest level until 25-26 and the problem now is we don't have any one to kind of look upto and reach that level."
Vittinghus said China's decline is good for the sport.
"I don't think we will see China become as dominating as they used to be and it is very good for the sports because one country being dominant kills the interest in the sport," he said.
